Month: May 2012

In a first of its kind survey about the perception of North East India amongst the people in rest of the country conducted by the North East India Image Managers (NEIim), a voluntary group of communication professionals, it was found that as high as 52% of the respondents have a negative perception about this region of India. Their immediate recall of ?North East India? is that of ?a region riddled with insurgency and most unsafe place in the country or most underdeveloped region with hardly any modern infrastructure and poor connectivity with the rest of the country or people with mongoloid features and weird food habit and an alien culture.
Key Highlights
52% respondents have a highly negative perception about North East India 76% have no idea about any peace talks going on between govt. and any militant group of NE91% have no knowledge about Northeast Industrial Policy 70% respondents won?t believe it if one states the fact that 3 of NE states have higher PCI than national average30% of professionals will never go and work in NE even if that best suits their career interest 75% respondents don’t know that the current UPA govt. has ministers hailing from Northeast42.7% advocates changes in the educational curriculum to provide more information about NE56.3% wants government to run mass awareness drive nationwide to educate people on NE
Another shocking revelation of the study is that 87% of the respondents could not name all the states of North East India. As many as 76% of the respondents had no idea about any peace talks that may be going on between any insurgent groups of North East India and Union Government of India. The findings of the survey indicate that due to the negative imagery that people have about the region even if they are given the best of the job offer and it suits their career interests best 30% of them will never go and work in Northeast while 52% are not sure if it?s a good idea to go and work there. Even if 71% of the respondents agree that the place is full of natural beauty, as many as 30% of them may not go on a vacation to Northeast. ?This testifies the fact that the picture has not really changed over the years. The stories of progress and peace from Northeast have not reached the people in the rest of the country yet. said NEIIM.
While 70% of the respondents can?t believe the fact that three North East Indian states have per capita income more than India’s national per capita income, as high as 91% did not know anything about Central Government?s Northeast Industrial Policy which gives special incentives for investments made in the region. 75% of the respondents don’t know whether the current UPA government has any minister representing any constituency of North East India. 56% of the respondents don?t know that there is an IIT, are Central Universities and a IIM in Northeast. NEIIM said,
This speaks about the failure of the governments both at centre as well as in the states to actually create awareness in the country. There is definite need to create communication programmes which break the myths about the region create a positive mindset among common people. The study, interim findings of which were released by NEIiM today, goes on to probe as how such a hiatus of knowledge was created and how to bridge it, 56.3% respondents said that the government should run special awareness campaigns using various media tools at national level to educate people about North East India. A sizeable 42.7% also advocated for changes in the curriculum in schools and colleges so that the children may know more about north east India.
Releasing the interim findings of the survey, NEIiM said about the methodology of the survey, We identified the target audience very selectively and we specifically targeted people who are from media, communication, advertising, public relations, human resources, finance and marketing and whose media consumption is considerably higher than any average person. We did an online survey using special online survey tools for most of our respondents and while for the rest traditional offline medium was used.
In total, data from over 400 working professionals based in Delhi, Mumbai and Bangalore and not hailing from Northeastern part of the country were captured during the course of the survey. These people work in the communication and service industry and keep a close tab on daily updates in the country.

Now, post the results, we were astonished by the fact that if the majority of our respondents did not know about North East region of India, how any common can man of India would know about them.
When the study further probed as to why they failed to have much information on North East India, a startling 61% said that they do not see much of north east India on national media. The perceived notion that people from north east India don?t mingle with others stand challenged as 51.6% of the respondents said that they started knowing whatever little about the culture and people of north east from their interaction with colleagues or friends from North East India. Almost 61% also believed that North East India provides a good platform for multi national and national corporations to invest. A whopping 89.7 % confirmed that the Union government should give special attention to North East India than what is being given now.
What is heart warming and interesting is that 93% of the respondents expressed that their desire to know more about Northeast India. 56% of the respondents feel that Government should run special awareness campaigns using various media vehicles at national level to educate people about Northeast while 43% suggest that school/college curriculum should include more information pertaining to history, geography, culture and economy of Northeast India.
The report throws up shocking revelations of lack of knowledge about a particular region and also a desire to learn and understand. The North East India Image Managers (NEIim) is working on the final draft of the report based on the findings which will also incorporate suggestions on facing the current situation which will be submitted to Ministry of Development of North Eastern region (DONER) as well as other important and concerned authorities for further action.
About NEIim: Northeast India Image Managers (NEIim) (http://www.facebook.com/groups/neimagemanagers/) is a group of PR/ Media / Brand Management/ Communications professionals hailing from Northeastern region of India and working in metros like Delhi, Mumbai, Bangalore etc. The group is aimed at discussing and finding out actionable issues pertaining to development and promotion of the image of Northeast India, which in the long run is expected to fill up the information and knowledge gap which has been existing leading to confusion about the people, society, economy and geography of Northeast amongst the rest of India.

Read more / Original news source: http://manipur-mail.com/perception-study-on-north-east-expose-glaring-knowledge-gap/

M.V.S. Prasad, Joint Director, PIB, Chennai.
Dr K. Parameswaran, Assistant Director, PIB, Madurai.
The World Press Freedom Day (WPFD) was jointly established in 1991 by UNESCO and the United Nations Department of Public Information (DPI), against the framework of a conference held in Windhoek, Namibia. This conference emphasized the idea that press freedom should be understood as necessitating pluralism and independence for the mass media at large. Since then, the World Press Freedom Day has been celebrated every year on May 3rd.
May 3rd was proclaimed World Press Freedom Day by the UN General Assembly also. This happened in 1993, following a recommendation adopted at the twenty-sixth session of UNESCO’s General Conference.
The day serves to inform citizens about various kinds of violations of press freedom – a grim reminder that publications are censored, fined, suspended and closed down, while journalists, editors and publishers are harassed and attacked. It is also the apt occasion to encourage and develop initiatives in favour of press freedom, and to assess the state of press freedom worldwide.
In more practical terms, freedom of the press or freedom of the media is the freedom of communication and expression through vehicles including various electronic media and various forms of published material in printed as well as allied forms like photographs, videos etc. While such freedom mostly implies the absence of interference from an overreaching state, its preservation may be sought through constitutional as well as other legal provisions.
The Idea of Press Freedom.
Media freedom entails the right of any person to enjoy freedom of opinion and expression on a public basis. This includes the freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers, as stated in Article 19 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. ICT (like text messaging) and social media have enabled the diffusion of vital information to reach the widest number of people in the shortest span of time. Equally importantly, the phenomenon of social media has also enabled protesters to self-organize, and thus engaged the global youth in the fight to be able to freely express themselves and the aspirations of their wider communities.
At the same time, it has to be noted that media freedom is extremely fragile. It is also important to recognize that it is not yet within the reach of everyone. While the enabling environment for true media freedom is improving, the harsh reality is that many in the world still do not have access to basic communication technology. Furthermore, as more reporting is transmitted online, more and more online journalists including bloggers are being harassed and attacked. UNESCO has even dedicated a webpage, UNESCO Remembers Assassinated Journalists.
States and governments too have a responsibility to ensure that national laws on freedom of expression are in accordance with internationally accepted principles as laid out in the Windhoek Declaration (adopted at Windhoek, Namibia) and UNESCO’s Media Development Indicators, which are both documents that they have endorsed.
Hindrances to Press Freedom
Media freedom is hindered mainly by two factors. One is a lack of any organized information system; the other is the lack of basic skills and literacy to access, understand and evaluate information. Many sections of the society not only lack access to express themselves publicly, but they are also deprived of ways of getting information that could educate and empower them. This lack of access has become a persistent paradox against the back ground of increasing spread of the World Wide Web and the consequent ease in accessing information.
According to the International Telecommunication Union (ITU), more than 60 percent of the world’s households still do not own a computer and no more than 35 percent of the world population consider themselves as “internet users” with the vast majority of those surveyed belonging to the “developing countries”. (This statistics is taken from a global study sponsored by the UNESCO).
Considering that the right to free speech and press freedom are deeply interconnected with the right to access information, it is a priority to bridge the digital divide both between and within countries. In fact, the participants at the recent 7th UNESCO Youth Forum underlined that democratizing access to ICTs is an urgent challenge. Universal access to information must be pursued especially in remote areas such as rural, remote and insular areas.
The Indian Context
In India, the constitution, while not mentioning the word “press”, provides for “the right to freedom of speech and expression” (Article 19(1) a). However this right is subject to restrictions under sub clause (2), whereby this freedom can be restricted for reasons of “soverignty and integrity of India, the security of the State, friendly relations with foreign States, public order, preserving decency, preserving morality, in relation to contempt, court, defamation, or incitement to an offense”.
For a proper functioning of democracy it is essential that citizens are kept informed about news from various parts of the country and even abroad, because only then can they form rational opinions. A citizen surely cannot be expected personally to gather news to enable him or her to form such opinions. Hence, the media play an important role in a democracy and serve as an agency of the people to gather news for them. It is for this reason that freedom of the press has been emphasized in all democratic countries, while it was not permitted in feudal or totalitarian regimes.
In developing countries like India, the media have a great responsibility to fight backward ideas such as casteism and communalism, and help the people in their struggle against poverty and other social evils.
“Since a large section of the people is backward and ignorant, it is all the more necessary that modern ideas are brought to them and their backwardness removed so that they become part of enlightened India. The media have a great responsibility in this respect”. (Justice Markandey Katju, Justice, Supreme Court).
Right to Information Act
It is against the background of the quality of access to information that has received world wide concern that the Right to Information Act 2005 passed by the Parliament acquires great significance. The act mandates timely response to citizen requests for government information.
Under the provisions of the Act, any citizen may request information from a “public authority” (a body of Government or “instrumentality of State”) which is required to reply expeditiously or within thirty days. The Act also requires every public authority to computerize their records for wide dissemination and to pro-actively publish certain categories of information so that the citizens need minimum recourse to request for information formally. This law was passed by Parliament on 15 June, 2005 and came fully into force on 13 October, 2005.
In short, the act empowers every citizen to ask any questions from the government or seek any information, take copies of any governmental documents, inspect any governmental documents, inspect any work undertaken by the government and take samples of materials of any governmental work.
Right to Information is a fundamental human right, crucial to human development, and a prerequisite for the realization of other human rights.
The experiences of the past seven years since the act has been in place shows that RTI has become a friend in need, making life easier and honorable for common people and empowers them to request and access public services successfully. (PIB Feature.)

Read more / Original news source: http://manipur-mail.com/world-press-freedom-day/